I'm about ready to take the plunge into ereaders this Christmas (my annual "toy" my wife let's me get ).

I have a nook on pre-order, but I haven't totally divorced myself from the PRS-600. I don't really plan on buying that many books; I mostly want to use my reader for technical PDFs (and yes, I know I should buy a Kindle DX, but I can't have *that* much of a toy).

I did notice that the nook has 16 shades of grey, and the PRS-600 only has 8. Could anyone with an 8 shade and a person with a 16 shade reader upload a photo of a graphic on their screen so I can compare how much of a difference there is between the two?

The PRS-600 actually has more of the features I need, but if it's easier to read graphically intense PDFs on the nook, I can work on converting them to fit the nook's screen rather than relying on the zoom on the 600.

Unfortunately, this depends on the quality of the dithering. So you may not be able to find out for sure until the Nook is out.

The best thread I am aware of on this topic (read the entire thread) is More display issues on the DR. This illustrates a) that the Sony's have excellent dithering, b) that 16 shades without dithering are "worse" than 8 shades with good dithering, and c) iRex has a buggy dithering implementation on the DR1000S. Note that except for (c) I would say that the iRex DR800SG is likely to be your best bet, although it is significantly more expensive than the Nook or PRS-600.

Wow, thanks, that totally cleared it up for me. The Sony is more than sufficient for what I'd need. It seems like I'm going to cancel my nook order ("This deal just keeps getting worse and worse all the time.") and get the Sony. The picture of the baby totally sold me: if the 16 shades looks better, who cares, it's totally good enough.

And, I've pretty much got a $260 limit (I can get the Sony for 10% off with a faculty discount). The iRex looks sweet, but I could buy 3 Sony's and tape them together for the same price :P

I'm about ready to take the plunge into ereaders this Christmas (my annual "toy" my wife let's me get ).

I have a nook on pre-order, but I haven't totally divorced myself from the PRS-600. I don't really plan on buying that many books; I mostly want to use my reader for technical PDFs (and yes, I know I should buy a Kindle DX, but I can't have *that* much of a toy).

I did notice that the nook has 16 shades of grey, and the PRS-600 only has 8. Could anyone with an 8 shade and a person with a 16 shade reader upload a photo of a graphic on their screen so I can compare how much of a difference there is between the two?

The PRS-600 actually has more of the features I need, but if it's easier to read graphically intense PDFs on the nook, I can work on converting them to fit the nook's screen rather than relying on the zoom on the 600.

Tell your wife you will spend less next year and get the Irex 800. For technical PDFs you won't be happy with either the nook or the PRS-600. You would be wasting your money.

I'm really hinky about the Irex because as far as I can tell, the only way to navigate is with the Wacom pen. If I drop it, lose it, etc (as I'm unfortunately prone to do), I'm up a creek until I can replace it. And I mostly read journal articles, which are 2 column formatted. This forum has shown me some pretty nice conversion software, so I think I can work it out with the 6" screen. But still, I'm going to try out some samples on a demo unit at the store before I pull the trigger. Thanks for the suggestion, though, and I'll keep my eyes peeled for an Irex demo unit as well.

Best Buy has the PRS-600 in store, and you should have a look at it before deciding, if you can. The referenced thread is taking photos of the PRS-505, which, in my opinion, looks WAY better than the PRS-600. The PRS-600 has a much darker display with much poorer contrast due to the touch screen.

Also, from my experiments with the Sony Touch Edition, the touch is a lie. I could not successfully turn pages with finger touch. It was an incredibly poor user experience. The UI also seemed super laggy to me.

B&N should have a display unit in before the pre-orders start shipping. If I were you I'd take a look at both before you decide.

As for me...I want the iRex. I am not really worried about the stylus. From the videos, it looked like all the navigation done by the stylus you could also do with the flip bar and thumb button.

Tell your wife you will spend less next year and get the Irex 800. For technical PDFs you won't be happy with either the nook or the PRS-600. You would be wasting your money.

I agree with this. That is IF the DR800SG is released. I pre-ordered one on Best Buy during the 6 hours they had it posted on their web site. I got a cryptic email from BB saying that my order was cancelled. My credit card was never charged. So what's the status of the DR800SG? I have asked Irex, and I get absolute silence as a reply. I guess I wouldn't depend on the DR800 anytime soon.

The Sony PRS-600 does dither very well. But, what you will find is that your technical PDFs will look not so good on any of the readers with a 6" screen. In order to be able to comfortably view them, you will need a reader with a larger screen.

I'm really hinky about the Irex because as far as I can tell, the only way to navigate is with the Wacom pen.

That is not correct. You can do all the navigation with the rockerbar and button that is along the left front edge.

I agree... if you want to read PDFs, bigger screen is better. If those PDFs are 8.5x11 layouts you will really HATE reading them on a 6inch screen. If they are text only then you can "try" the conversion tools... but most of them have downsides.